That’s not the analogy. The analogy was between one situation where my respect for someone’s right to do something still couldn’t make me want to date that person and another situation where the exact same thing occurs.
Since this board is overwhelmingly religious compared to my daily situation, I thought the coprophagia/Big Brother situation might be easier for you guys to understand.
I agree. If she says in her on-line profile that she is looking for someone who shares her faith, she’s looking for someone to share her faith. If you don’t, and you arrange to meet her, she’ll wonder why you wasted her time.
If she said she was looking for someone who spoke Spanish, and you don’t speak Spanish, would you try to have a date with her? It’s less about the faith than respecting what she says she wants.
If you think that’s the only sticking point in an otherwise perfect match, then say in your *very first *communication: “Hey, I love everything about your profile and would love to meet you, but I’m an athiest. If that is a deal-breaker, I understand, but I’m still open for meeting if you are.” That lets her re-assess the importance of faith in her potential dates/mates and leaves the ball in her court whether to move forward or not.
I’m guessing you aren’t thinking about eventually having kids when you first start dating, but child rearing is one place where I’ve seen couples of different religions begin to have problems. They’re fine with each others’ beliefs, but once one person wants to have the kid go to church or a religious school or whatever, things get more dicey.
Long term couples of different religions, did you have this problem?
Since she stated she wants to “share” her faith…not just be “ok” with it, I say you don’t have a chance in hell beyond friendship. She doesn’t want to be tolerated. She wants enthusiasm and gusto, two things you will not be able to give her.
Vix, I’ve given my kids some education about and exposure to my religion, and hubby has no objection to this. But ultimately, the final decision is theirs. My oldest daughter, who is 19, made her declaration to the Baha’i faith (my religion) when she was 15. I told her at the time that it was her decision, not to do it on my behalf, and she said that was what she wanted. But since then, she’s left the faith. She’s been Christian and Wiccan since then. I think she’s confused. 
My middle daughter, EtherealFreakOfPinkness, was going to make her declaration at 15, but then decided it’s a major undertaking and before she declares, she wants to make sure it’s what she wants. I’m cool with that. It has to be her decision. My six-year-old doesn’t care yet. 
I’ve seen plenty of mixed-faith relationships work. My boss is an athiest and his wife a devout Catholic. He has no problem with his kids going to mass and through the communion things and she has no problem with his lack of faith. On a personal note, Hubby would describe himself as “spiritual” whereas I have no belief in any of the supernatural. (And, I admit, I’m not as tolerant of it as I should be.)
The key is that both parties have to be open-minded. If it’s going to be a constant issue where one party is trying to convert the other, it won’t work. But this doesn’t apply just to religion: it can be politics, or even which sport teams to support.
The key is respect, I’d avoid any person who said that they wouldn’t consider dating someone if they didn’t have this-or-that outlook. It’s a big Red Flag that this person is intolerant, and I’d bet dollars to donuts it won’t be the only issue on which they put their foot down.
It took some convincing for me to go along with my wife’s desire to baptize our children, take them to mass and put our oldest in a Catholic school but it was important to her so I relented. Our deal is that I can talk to them about my skepticism when they’re older. I also don’t want them to grow up completely ignorant of Christianity and the Bible because I think that can just mystify it further and perhaps make them vulnerable to some of the more predatory evangelical groups out there.
Well, that right there is the respect problem in a nutshell. I dated an atheist guy, and it all came down to the fact that deep down, he thought I was stupid. He loved me and all, and he tried, but he thought I was gullible and dumb. So I broke up with him, and we’re both happily married to other people.
But you can’t define that as respect, 'cause it ain’t. If you think religious people are automatically stupid, that’s not respect and you shouldn’t try to date them.
For some faiths, though, there are lifestyle issues that could make living with someone who doesn’t share that faith very difficult.
For example, Mr. Neville and I keep kosher, and are fairly serious about it (we have two sets of dishes). You can’t have a kosher kitchen and kosher dishes if someone else who lives there is using the same kitchen and dishes to cook non-kosher food (well, some people do, but that wouldn’t satisfy us). There are also issues of Shabbat observance in Judaism- not going out on Friday nights, not doing work or driving anywhere on Saturday, and so on and so forth.
I suppose a mixed relationship could work, if the other person were a vegetarian, or if they were willing to go along with the fact that there’s stuff we won’t do on Friday night or Saturday. But I think most non-vegetarian non-Jews wouldn’t want to give up eating pork, shellfish, or dishes that mix meat and dairy at home, or give up going out as a couple on Friday nights, or give up Saturday as a possible day to do chores around the house or go out somewhere.
There are other religions that might have day-to-day practices like this, too- some Catholics would need their partner’s cooperation on the issue of birth control, for example.
I had a jewish boss who married a hard-core catholic. They go to a multi-faith church and the kids perform the ritualistic stuff required by both faiths. It strikes me more as an Introduction to World Faiths situation than anything else. One question: Can a kid make both communion and go through the bar mitzvah process? Wouldn’t one side or the other consider the kid a traitor? Or is it really not that big a deal to do either ritual?
Another long-term married couple (8 years) of mixed religion here. I’m an agnostic/athiest depending on the day, while my wife is a sincere, but fairly laid back Christian. We’ve made the deal that I never get dragged to a church, and I don’t comment on what I think of the church, and it works fairly well. Only really became an issue when …
Which is where we’re at right now. They’re still pretty young, but there was a fairly heated dicussion last week over the religious daycare versus the secular one two blocks away. We’ve agreed that I will fully support her exposing the kids to her religion, but I want her doing it, not some stranger at a daycare.
Sheeh, those kids won’t have time for anything else. No weekend fun for them-- Judiasm takes their Friday nights and Saturdays, and Christianity takes up their Sundays. But, then again, I guess if they’re getting both seven night’s worth of Hannukah presents and Christmas, too, it probably evens out in a kid’s mind.
I know! I don’t see how they could take both seriously. I’m sure they’ll either blow them both off or go to one side or the other eventually. The weird part is that the dad was raised in a catholic/jewish home, too! He identifies completely with the jewish side.
My niece, “Sara” is watched by a Catholic woman who runs her own daycare. My mom says Sara has taken to crossing herself. My mother, who’s raising her, is not religious but she thinks it’s amusing, so she doesn’t say anything.
Mom said last week, she overheard Sara muttering to herself in frustration while she was trying to get a shoe on a doll. “Shit! . . . Sorry, Jesus. Aw, shit! Sorry, Jesus,” with a glance up at the ceiling with every apology.
So, yeah, they’ll pick up the behaviors they see, but in my opinion, unless the daycare is actually trying to preach to the children, it’s harmless for little kids. It’s meaningless to them, and will likely be forgotten when they start aping someone else’s behavior.
I can be friends with people with different faiths and beliefs, or no faith at all, but I would not marry someone who was an atheist. My husband and I support each other and encourage each other in a way that for us would be difficult if we did not share a faith, and I think raising children would be very difficult. Denominational differences could be overcome for me but deep down I need someone who shares my worldview on the most basic level. I have respect for and intelligent debates with people of all kinds of beliefs but I want and need specific things in a marriage and a shared faith is one of them.
If she put in her profile she wants someone to share her faith she is being upfront about it and you should be the same. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to ask her but I wouldn’t really expect things to advance here.
Very good point, sir.
I suppose I never really thought that much about it before, but I agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment. It does seem to explain to me why, despite my girlfriend and I not having the exact same theological positions, I feel we’re not that far apart in that respect (she’s mostly apathetic, and I’m a wishy-washy lapsed Christian). I think both of us think pretty similarly of fanatics/extremists, so, as you put so well, perhaps we aren’t that different.
It can work, if both partners are otherwise on the same page about things. And it has to be discussed, not ignored. And it definately helps if neither partner is a hardliner.
I am an Agnostic and my husband is Lutheran and we’ve been happily married for 20 years. It wouldn’t have worked if I had been the sort of Atheist who thinks all people of faith are stupid or deluded, and it wouldn’t have worked if my husband had been the kind of Christian who thinks all non-believers are doomed and tainted. You have to come to terms. In our case, I agreed that my husband could raise the kids Lutheran (baptise them, take them to church and Sunday school, allow them to take Confirmation classes). On his side, he had to agree that I could teach the kids about other belief systems, that I could share my own skepticism with them and that, under no circumstances would they be forced to partake of religion if they came to the conclusion that it wasn’t for them. Our kids are grown now and one of them (our 20 year old son) is an Agnostic, while the other (our 19 year old daughter) is quite religious – so much so that she is considering becoming a minister.
Back to the OP – I think you’d better leave this relationship alone. It doesn’t matter so much that you are on different pages about religion – what matters is that you differ on the day-to-day importance of sharing your religion. For her, a ‘good match’ means someone who shares her religious beliefs. This is not unreasonable, and it isn’t a sign of intolerance. She wants what she wants and you can’t give it to her. Back off and let her find someone who will.
What women say they want in a relationship isn’t always what they really want in a relationship, nor is it always what they are attracted to. I say date her, and as she gets invested in the relationship start to deprogram her from Christianity. That’s what I always do.
I found it humorous.
Christian here but not vocally so, the only times I had a problem about that with (boy)friends of other inclinations was when they forgot about it. Kind of funny, that one time my bf made a remark about how stupid it is to have a rosary hanging from your rearview mirror… a common friend said “you know, I think this will be fun to watch”… next time he got in my car, there was a rosary hanging from the rearview mirror and the common friend giggled about it the whole way.
If he hadn’t had amulets all over his place, I wouldn’t have done it; his mistake was critizicing a behaviour that he actually shared, only with different symbols. I don’t care what you believe in or not, but I expect people to be coherent (yes, I know, being incoherent is part of being human, sue me but I’m owned by the bank).